Hiya, Querencia! Pan back again to review.
"The heart of it is, we went to find Mia's uncle tonight because there are monsters in the woods."
Mrs. Bale scoffed. "Finnley, I know you didn't like moving to a new town, and I'm sure the kids will try and tell you stories, though you're far too old for it-"
I feel like it's always a typical Teen Fiction Thing for the protagonist to tell the truth about some magical happening and the parents to be like 'oh, you're much too old to believe that'. I just wonder how realistic it is, really. I'm not saying she'd believe him, but I'd kind of expect a mother like Mrs Bale to have more of an uncertain and concerned reaction. It's not like Finnley's been short of trauma in the last few years, so I feel like she'd be concerned for his mental state. What he's saying does sound pretty delusional.
At the very least, I'd expect her to be a bit taken aback. Surely whatever excuse she was expecting him to come out with, it wasn't 'there are monsters in the woods'.
However, when several minutes had passed in an uncomfortable silence
Minutes is too long. Something you notice when you study real-life interaction is that silences are a lot, lot shorter than we think they - a pause of even a few seconds feels like an age, and it indicates some kind of severe conversational breakdown. Unless Finnley's mum is actually doing something within these silent few minutes, it doesn't work. There's no way she and Finnley would just stand there not speaking for that length of time - the awkwardness would be far too much.
In short, you should probably shorten minutes to seconds.
"No, I think it's too late for that. I feel like I'm a part of whatever this is now, and besides that... besides that, I have friends." He ducked his head with a little embarrassment at the end of that, but his mother smiled.
"Alright, I suppose it can't hurt any more to stay until the end of the semester. Then we'll see," said Mrs. Bale.
A demon just burned down Mia's house!! I know she's a Cool Mom, but not that cool, surely? If she's already lost one child, I feel like there's no way she'd let her son stay so close to something so dangerous. You'd have to give her a reason to do so. A reason stronger than 'he has friends here'.
That's all for specific comments. I am pretty pumped that Finnley's mum is going to be a part of this, because I feel like their little rag-tag team could do with a bit of adult supervision (proper adult supervision; it's not like Fred was much good at it). However, I think you need to work on her reaction to the truth, because it doesn't feel like it rings true to me. She's very quick to accept that magic exists. She's also not nearly freaked enough by the knowledge that a monster literally imitated her dead child and tried to entice her remaining child into the woods to kill him. You do have that little bit at the end about Allie, but I want to see Mrs Bale actually react to Finnley mentioning her. I don't think we ever get a strong enough insight into her grief.
There's also the fact that, like I mentioned, I don't think there's a cat in hell's chance that Mrs Bale could be persuaded not to leave. Monsters in the woods? Monsters that are specifically hunting her only remaining child? She'd be out of there like a shot. I don't know how you'd restructure the plot to give her a believable reason to stick around, but something needs to be changed. I don't think she'd put Finnley's friendships over his survival.
That's all for this review. I am excited going forward, but I think this is a chapter that may need restructuring in the future. Still, that's all part of the process.
Keep writing!
~Pan
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